No new cases of COVID-19 in the community today; 33 of the 109 close contacts of the infected South Auckland family return negative results; Alert level announcement to be made at 4:30pm on Wednesday

Not as good as finding the index case, but the next best thing I suppose.

They've only reported 5,000 or so of the tests done yesterday so still 2/3rd of the results from yesterday's tests are being processed + todays. If tomorrows results are 0 further community cases and waste water testing is negative, then NZ needs to go back to level 1, Auckland at 2 with 100 gatherings and Auckland back at 1 from midnight Friday (assuming no further community cases that weren't already in isolation).

That super spreader UK variant is doing a poor job

Early days, the testing is unreliable and it also takes time to show a positive. Even with zero new cases your not out of the woods for weeks. We cannot afford to keep having this make it into the community. The real cost of returning people into this country is tens of thousands each. The team of 5 million has had a guts full of this. Is it now not time to keep everyone out of the country unless they can prove they have been vaccinated ? This would at least be one step closer to keeping it out.

I'm getting the impression that there is no ranking of the swabs before testing so that if the labs receive say 3000 but 100 odd come from Paptoetoe HS and other close+ contacts they are just put in the queue in the order received or if a batch received just at random out of the batch. If this is not the case why is it taking so long to get the Paptoetoe HS or other more likely contact places results out?

Great to hear they are doing wastewater testing

In my view we have lost our perspective on the reality of what can and can't be done with a virus like this - much like king Canute & the tide. A large proportion of the population seems gripped by fear that only (unsophisticated) lockdowns can fix. I think its time that the honest narrative - that some annual mortality is going to be inevitable as it is with many other diseases - is given by our Government sooner than later.

If it's the UK variant it could be extended.

I'm getting more than frustrated at people's inability to have a rational, intelligent and nuanced discussion about this thing - whether it be about masks, vaccines, lockdowns, "case" numbers or just the virus itself.

I'm sure a lot of it is driven by fear and lack of accurate and timely information. I would consider the MSM to be a major contributing factor in this, but also government, the current polarised political landscape and to a certain extent, the scientific community themselves. It is very difficult to find a balanced viewpoint on anything Covid-19 related. I agree with @TheXMan that an honest narrative is required but I don't believe you will get one from this government, nor any political party in this country.

One should be allowed to question whether a Level 3 lockdown for our largest city is an appropriate response in the case that three people in one household are confirmed Covid-19 cases. I'm not suggesting that no response is required and we should just "do nothing", but we do have systems in place to deal with minor outbreaks. Given the amount of time the family spent at popular tourist hotspots in New Plymouth, why are they not in Level 3 too?

One should also be allowed to question just how virulent the U.K./S.A. variant is in a New Zealand setting, when so few people seem to contract it in the community. I have been very interested in the fact that, or so it appears, nobody else seemed to contract the virus following the Pullman hotel cases. These are not unreasonable questions to ask. The push back people seem to get for asking questions of this nature is disturbing. But maybe it is the way the question is posed?

There are a number of ways to deal with a spreading virus. A lockdown is one way. Other ways could include all or a combination of the following: appropriate social distancing, appropriate mask usage, contact tracing, isolation facilities, vaccines, prophylaxis, border management and a strong and healthy population of people. It is incredibly frustrating to keep reading, "we only have our freedom because of lockdowns", or similar. That is only partly true. In my opinion, the greatest thing keeping us "free" is the fact that we are a mostly self sufficient, sparsely populated island nation, with pretty reasonable weather/sunlight, who has the ability to manage a reasonably robust MIQ programme for people entering the country. Is it perfect? Of course not, but the system, along with the other national initiatives have done a pretty good job keeping the virus out, even in cases where it has come out of a MIQ facility. 643 cases have been caught at MIQ facilities, which is about 25% of all of our cases. So lets not pretend that lockdowns are the only means of dealing with this thing, because they are not.

I find it interesting that the "health population" bit (above) has been seemingly ignored by almost everybody for the duration of the pandemic. Surely, given the amount of time, money and energy the government spends on public health campaigns, this pandemic would be a great excuse to push things such as: reduce alcohol, increase exercise, increase sleep, eat a healthy diet, lose weight, quit smoking, ensure you are getting Vitamin D, Zinc etc. There is only one person on these boards, and they know who they are, who has ever mentioned such things. Beyond that, I haven't heard a peep from anybody else - government, MSM etc. Why is this?

I am a big fan of The Dark Horse Podcast with Bret Weinstein (of the Evergreen State College protests fame) and his wife Heather Heying. They are both evolutionary biologists and provide a very balanced and scientific view of the current state of the world, including some very interesting and in-depth discussions around Covid-19. I highly recommend this to, well, anybody that has an interest in learning (particularly about Covid).

Looking forward to seeing some more nuanced discussions on these pages.

NZ way of thinking; yip no more positive test result for the recent blitz- then away we go down, 3 days in level 2 then back to normal at level 1 after that - 7 days must be avoided, as it cost too much (govt won't say it loudly).
.. deep down all those scientist can only hope that the 'NZ lucky charm continues'.. tricky this.. incubation period

Let's pull the draw-bridge up on the moat for six months and test to see how resilient and industrious we really are? Why not? 'We' blab about it all the time, so why not test ourselves?

Theres increasing background evidence that strongly suggests the C virus was leaked from a secret bio weapons lab in China, which coincidentally (or conveniently) got out during the Military Games in October. China of course has denied this, instead has engaged in an endless propaganda campaign to deny its responsibility - the Chinese narrative and Chinese cover-up are all you get from the MSM.